When Angels Cry
by SomethingSillySherlock
Summary: Aria is trapped by an angel. She knows she is about to die, so she begins to talk to it about her family. "Only you, Aria, would think of talking to an angel." One-shot. Response to a request of "if angels had feelings".


I only have a few minutes left. Only as long as I can keep my eyes open. As long as I can force myself to not blink.

The weeping angel has tight hold of my wrist, my arm suspended between us. This... _thing_ is monstrous, its stone face twisted in a garish snarl of unfathomable anguish. Cold, futile tears stream down my face in two twin rivers. They land, sparkling, on the mossy ground of the forest. My tears will be the last thing I give to this world.

As I stare at the angel, a pang rips through me. In less than two minutes I will be wiped from the face of the earth. The Doctor will tell my family, or send someone to tell my family, and they will sit there in horrified shock, faces blank and eyes wide. It will be a gray day, lifeless and devoid of joy. The fog will lay heavy on the November-frozen ground, and my three little sisters will be dressed in their black dresses, the ones that they play dress-up in. The ones that they put on to look like adults. But when I am dead, they won't be pretending to be adults anymore. They will be all grown-up. Death forces you to grow up. I know from experience. And I don't want that for them. I want them to have a good childhood, full of summer sun and lemonade on hot afternoons.

But death forces us to grow up. When I was twelve, my best friend died in a car crash. That day I had felt a weight settle in my chest, an undeniable weight. And then I just knew. I had grown up. I look at the angel, another tear sliding down my cold cheek.

"Do you have a family?" I ask it. It's idiotic, talking to an angel. It is just a monster, preying on other people's misfortune. But I am sure no one has ever bothered to try talking to an angel. Just... talking. I wonder how the angels feel. If they feel. Of course the angel doesn't reply. Even if it could speak, it is frozen because I am staring at it intently. But I keep talking to it. Because I have to talk, and there is no one else around to hear me.

"I have a family," I say, a sad smile touching my lips. "We live in the country. A big stone house with huge windows. Oh, and the library! It's spectacular. There's Mum and Dad, of course. Dad owns a bookshop in town, and every evening when he comes home he reads us stories from one of his books. Mum is like a fairy godmother. She always knows what to say and how to make others feel better. When we come home crying, she makes us trays of lemon cookies and we eat them on the back porch, listening to the crickets. That's when she reminds us of what life is really about. She says life is measured by the number of moments that take your breath away."

I suck in a breath, my eyelids fluttering but not closing. I don't have much time left.

"Then there are my sisters," I say, this time choking out the words through a sob. "May, Annie, and Lucy. We've all been best friends since I can remember, always there for each other. When Lucy broke her leg riding a bike, May and I carried her back three miles to our house. The time my boyfriend broke up with me after a terrible fight, Annie stormed up to him and socked him in the face. "

"I love my family more than anything," I confide to the angel. "Do you ever wonder what happens to the families of the people you kill? The ones who get left behind? I don't mind dying so much. I just can't bear the thought of leaving my family behind."

The angel, of course, says nothing. My eyes begin to blur, and I know I have mere seconds left until I will have to blink. Another sob rips through me, and I bow my head forward, leaning my forehead against the angel's stone arm.

"Goodbye," I whisper, thinking only of my family. "I love you."

Then I blink.

I can't feel the angel's arm on my wrist anymore. For the longest time, the world is dark and cold. Then I realize... nothing is happening. If it is dark and cold, I am still alive. But I blinked. How can this be?

Cautiously, I open my eyes. The weeping angel is standing a few feet away, its hands clasped peacefully together. I stare at it in wonder, because it has let me go. Why wouldn't it just kill me? Unless... angels do have feelings after all. And no one has ever bothered to ask them or talk to them at all.

I walk up to the angel, not afraid anymore. It seems to be smiling, a gentle smile that I didn't know it was capable of. And is that a tear on its cheek?

I never knew until now that angels could feel, let alone cry.

"Thank you," I say, searching its stone eyes. Then I turn and run off into the woods, in search of the Doctor. I only run for a few minutes when I literally run into him. He jumps sideways awkwardly, then catches his balance and reaches up to straighten his bowtie.

"Aria, there you are!" he says in relief. "How did you get away from the angels?" I smile at him secretively.

"Well, I just talked to it," I reply. The Doctor shakes his head at me in wonder.

"Only you, Aria, would ever think of talking to an angel," he says, his eyes glowing.

"Did you know that angels can cry?" I ask him as we set off into the woods, towards the TARDIS. The Doctor just shakes his head again.

The angel had showed me mercy. They are capable of feeling and emotion- more than we know. Angels are just like any other creature, doing what they need to do in order to survive. Other people see them as monsters. But I vow never to forget that angels aren't so different from me.

I promise never to forget today, the day I saw an angel cry.


End file.
